1 Myddylton Place

Sunday, 13 November 2011

Well here goes with another update, mid november and the sun is still shining and today the temperature has been 17 degrees and therefore a good day to introduce Honey to her new home. She spent several hours exploring the house and garden giving it her seal of approval!!!

Since my last post, Alan and Charlie with John have been forging ahead with the decorating the Screen room has been finished along with the lower ground floor maltings. We have opened up the window seat unfortunately no interesting finds however it now lifts up easily.

Rolf and Jordan have also been busy they have fitted the new roof light in David's study. It proved to be challenging in case the glass fell out and went flying down to the pavement below. It has improved the room making it not only warmer but cutting down on the traffic noise

Rolf and Jordan started forming our en-suite bathroom, dressing room and airing cupboard, this is the last area to be transformed, we have exposed quite a few more beams as can be seen above.

Colin has been 'happy' using more lime plaster.

We had a visit from Douglas Kent from SPAB last weekend and on Wednesday Bruce Munro and

Jim ( Essex Architectural Historian) visited Myddylton Place. Both visits were very helpful Douglas advising us on restoration of the old floorboards and the sealing of the floor bricks. He was also very interested in the lathes exposed in the en - suite bathroom which are not very uniform and rather large. He believed it would help date the property again 15th century and Jim on his visit confirmed this. Jim helped us date different parts of the house believing the panelling in the screen room to be approximately 1740 and may have come out of Audley End, certainly an interesting thought!!

Well as I said 5 weeks to go which I am sure will go quickly however as long as the Kitchen appears very soon feel pretty sure we will be fine, we are hoping the weather remains kind to allow us to continue at this pace. Although the heating is now on in the morning and the evening and appears remarkably warm.

Monday, 31 October 2011

Full of good intentions of keeping this blog up to date with photos, but this project is time consuming and along with family issues and the fact that I had a technical meltdown in accessing this blog, life has conspired against further updates. Apologies to family and friend followers. So here we go with an update on the progress at Myddylton place.

The Kitchen now has a brick floor laid magnificently by Rob, it enhances the whole room plus we have the Aga installed!!!!

Beautiful autumn weather means we have nearly finished the painting outside, we have two new French windows plus a new utility room window so finally some symmetry is returning to the building, the Farrow's cream lifts the rear garden, so pleased with it.

So below we have the pole room in blue, this room feels much brighter, it the first room to have a colour on the walls closely followed landing room. Several rooms are now ready for the final coat of paint including Emma's study and bedroom, the master bedroom, the family room, the upper maltings are also nearly there. On the ground floor we have a working cloakroom with doors plus hot water should we need it!!! The office is next to be decorated

The office/study has now been finished as can be seen below quite a striking room should keep Tony awake when he is working in the evenings!!

The external paintwork is now finished love the colour, the patio/terrace should be started this week

The repair to the wall after the car accident is now finished externally and painted, so we are wind and water tight, all glass and leaded lights have been repaired .

David's bathroom has been tiled and his bedroom is nearly painted. It feels so much brighter and spacious.

The wardrobe and shower have been fitted.

The flooring is being fitted this week then the other sanitary fittings can be installed. Below is a picture of Emma's new bathroom the units have been fitted, it is nearly tiled.

We are hoping to move in before Christmas, seven weeks to go which should mean most of the decorating will be done. Curtains are arriving and carpet ordered. The garden is hopefully taking shape in the middle of November and the kitchen should be installed at about the same time. There are still lots of decisions to be made some paint colours, light fittings and various floor finishes. However, it is starting to feel more like home and with every room that is decorated.

Friday, 2 September 2011

I have been meaning to update this blog but little did I think I would be downloading the pictures below. A sad day at Myddylton Place, at 9.30 this morning someone drove into the side of 1 Myddylton place, a week after it had been repaired and limewashed!! Unfortunately, the driver possibly wrote off one car, badly dented another and hit our lovely historic property. No one was hurt which is a blessing but a few shocked people not least the Chapmans!!!

The car wedged in our front door, pretty sure if the decorator's car had not been parked there, the driver would have ended up inside!!

An internal shot below showing the wheel shaft coming through the wall of the building!!

Well hopefully my next post will be more positive showing the Bridge street side of the building which has been newly painted, looking great!!

Thursday, 25 August 2011

Truly wonderful to see some limewash going on the external walls and then some emulsion turning the master bedroom a very bright habitable room, just painted white at present as you can see below.

John and Colin painting the upstairs Maltings room, quite a job as Limewash splashes very easily as it is such a thin mixture. Also visible the new doorway and the very old timbers in the roof space above the hall.

Two toilets and utility room starting to take shape

The car park in use finally, not sure the builders appreciate the white lines!!! Think they would prefer to go off piste so to speak.

There still seems a lot to do but making progress. So many decisions to make from paint colours, tiles, flooring, carpet etc, the list goes on but all very exciting.

Wednesday, 10 August 2011

The sad looking building above is going to be our new home, it has been owned by the Youth Hostel Association since 1950, it finally shuts its doors in June 2011. The YHA looked after the property structurally but unfortunately it had fallen into disrepair internally.

We first viewed the property in October 2010 but due to Planning Permission and Listed Building Consent, we did not finalise the sale until early July 2011.

We are excited and daunted by taking on such an iconic house, it is an amazing Grade 1 Listed building, one of Saffron Walden's most historic properties.

I am sadly late with the start of this blog but as they say better late than never. BT conspired against an early commencement and I have decided juggling three properties allows for no spare time, so having finally dealt with the move. I am now hoping to keep this blog up to date as renovating this amazing building will be an enthralling journey, already the changes have been quite dramatic.

The builders started work on Monday 4th July, within the first week the stripping out was well under way with carpets, partitions, old showers, boilers etc all filling numerous skips plus the garden very quickly became a car park for various tradesmen. The picture above is the mens shower room before demolition, the image below of the boiler and shower room without partitions taken during the first week of renovation.

Uncovering these amazing beams was quite a highlight although we realised they were there, to see the room emerge in first few days was very rewarding. The second week, a very necessary clear up took place with several skips and bonfires. Further stripping out of electric cable and pipework carried on throughout the week, unfortunately we seem to have created quite a building site, it is extremely dusty which I suppose is to be expected. Mid July we left the various tradesmen alone and disappeared to Cornwall. On our return we found a new boiler, some new radiators, further stripping out in the ladies shower room on Bridge street. Electrics and Plumbing slowly creeping around the building with hanging wires and pipes in mid air!!!

The first week of August was momentus in that work started on the outside of 1 Myddylton Place, the decorators started gently brushing the timbers, removing a unpleasant brown stain possibly linseed oil, the external beams are much improved. We have started collecting match pots for inside and outside walls, all quite confusing, maybe we could open a sub branch of Farrow and Ball!!!!